Tens of thousands of people from across Poland joined a march in Warsaw on Friday, the biggest in nine days of protests against a ruling by the country’s top court last week that amounted to a near-total ban on abortion in the predominantly Catholic nation.
Defying strict rules that restrict gatherings to five people during the coronavirus pandemic, demonstrators walked through central Warsaw streets carrying black umbrellas, a symbol of abortion rights protests in Poland, and banners that read “You won’t have to walk alone” or “God is a woman”.
Military police lined the streets, some of them in riot gear, as the demonstration began.
Organisers said some 100,000 people gathered in the capital, following a Constitutional Court ruling on 22 October outlawing abortions due to foetal defects - ending the most common of the few legal grounds left for abortion in Poland and setting the country further apart from the European mainstream.
Daily protests have taken place in towns and cities across the country in the past week, and have turned into an outpouring of anger against the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government and the Roman Catholic church closely allied with the ruling party.
Thousands of people gather in the centre of Warsaw as they take part in the protest against the tightening of abortion laws in Poland, 30 October 2020. Source: PAP
Far-right groups which support the court ruling also turned out in small gatherings in Warsaw on Friday, and TV footage showed police clashing with them to keep one group away from the protesters.
The leader of the abortion rights movement in Poland, Marta Lempart, told activists to report any attacks and to resist any threats of prosecution or fines for taking part. “We are doing nothing wrong by protesting and going out on the streets,” she told a news conference.
After the ruling goes into effect, women will only be able to terminate a pregnancy legally in the case of rape, incest or a threat to their health.
Dancing on trams
In an effort to ease tensions, Polish President Andrzej Duda, a government ally, proposed legislation on Friday reintroducing the possibility of terminating a pregnancy due to foetal abnormalities, although only limited to defects that are immediately life-threatening.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pledged lawmakers would proceed with the legislation quickly, but demonstrators were unimpressed.
“This is an attempt to soften the situation for PiS, but no sane person should fall for it,” activist and leftist lawmaker Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus told Reuters on Mr Duda’s proposal.
The government has accused demonstrators of risking the lives of the elderly by defying strict pandemic rules against large gatherings. Poland reported a daily record of more than 21,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday.
Health Minister Adam Niedzielski drew comparisons between the Polish protest and the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality, saying demonstrations across the United States have caused an “escalation” of the pandemic.
Public health experts say there has yet to be conclusive evidence of large-scale spread from the U.S. events.
The protests in Poland have marked a rare display of political activism among young voters. In Warsaw on Friday, music blared from loudspeakers, and some danced on top of parked trams, singing Britney Spears’ “Toxic”.
Five women were charged with organising an illegal protest which attracted 850 people in the town of Police on Thursday, regional police spokeswoman Alicja Sledziona said on Friday.
People take part in a protest against the tightening of the abortion law in Wroclaw, south-west Poland, 30 October 2020 Source: PAP
The Catholic Church has said that while it opposes abortion, it did not push the government or the court to increase restrictions. It called for people to talk and refrain from violence this week, but declined to comment further on Friday.
PiS, however, has sought to instil more traditional and Catholic values in public life since it took power in 2015, ending state funding for in vitro fertilisation, introducing more patriotic themes into school curricula and funding Church programmes.
Some bakeries in Poland have been selling goods decorated with a red lightning bolt, another symbol of the women’s rights movement, and people have written the phone number of a hotline helping women seeking terminations in chalk on sidewalks.
Trams in opposition-controlled Warsaw made their regular journeys on Friday evening with signs “Women, we are with you” where their destinations are normally displayed.
